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Monday, 30 June 2014

Today is the final day of the 2013-14 Annual Catalogue, so it's my final "farewell" post. The I Am Me DSP was one of my favourites from the catalogue. I loved the colour combinations and patterns in the paper.

This card was a CASE of one I saw at the recent Stampin' Up! Convention in Melbourne. I really loved it, especially as we were shown a few different versions that showed how the same design could be male, female, baby, whatever you want! I just can't remember who the card was demonstrated by.

The hexagon that outlines the sentiment was punched from the cardstock, and then a few of the hexagons surrounding it are popped up on Dimensionals.

Nice and simple on the inside, following the hexagon theme.

I'll be back soon with some new stuff from the 2014-15 Annual Catalogue!

Saturday, 28 June 2014

It's been a really miserable week in Adelaide. Perfect weather for staying inside and scrapping. I was hoping to finish my Paris album this weekend, but we have a very busy weekend so it looks like it probably won't happen. Oh well, there's only one more school week until the holidays, so hopefully I can get it finished then. In the meantime, here's a few more pages.

The Grand and Petit Palaces are opposite each other on the banks of the Seine. We had planned to tour both, but after lining up for a short time at the Grand Palais we realised that the line was for a fashion photography exhibition. We were unable to tour the building itself, so we left and headed across the Rue to the Petit Palais where we were able to tour the building. It houses an art museum that focuses on the Fine Arts.

It was a gorgeous building, with many beautiful works of art. For me though, the highlight was the courtyard in the middle. Paris was emerging from Winter into Spring and so the trees were just starting to blossom. So pretty!

Our next destination was the Invalides and to get there we had to cross the Seine. We crossed le Pont Alexandre III several times, and each time we were impressed with the beauty of the bridge. I just had to devote a whole page to it! The photos were taken on different days, hence the sunny and cloudy skies in the photos!

Friday, 27 June 2014

Here we are at the end of another week. They are flying past so quickly! This week for our Just Add Ink challenge Kim has designed a sketch. It's really great - open to interpretation in so many fabulous ways.

The sketch stumped me for a while, but then I was looking through my new Everyday Adventure Project Life Card Collection and found the perfect card!

It works so well with the sketch! I matted it on Basic Black and then created a background for the card using the sentiment stamp from Just Sayin'.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I love that the cards from the Project Life sets can be used for more than just PL scrapbooking.

I hope you can find time to play along with us the week at Just Add Ink - it's a fabulous sketch!

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Today's card is a bit of a Hello, Goodbye card. I've combined the retiring Baby Tees Jumbo Wheel with the brand new Blendabilities Alcohol Markers. I'm so in love with these markers! I've even started stamping images and taking them in my handbag so I can colour while I'm waiting in between appointments. It's very addictive!

This card was another commissioned card, the request being a card for someone expecting a baby girl. I used the Rich Razzleberry, Daffodil Delight and Calypso Coral sets of Markers to colour the onesies. I left the front of the card without a sentiment as I thought that it didn't really need one. Also because I couldn't think of how to get one on there without it looking a bit strange!

Here's a closer look at my colouring. I love how you can get the depth of shading with the markers. On these onesies I used the darkest marker around the edge of the image and shaded lighter as I got closer to the centre of the image.A bit harder on the polka dot onesie, but I think I did ok!

I rolled the whole strip of onesies and coloured most of them. I didn't want to waste any of my hard work so I fussy cut the last one and used it on the inside. On this image I placed the darkest colour on the left hand side of the image and shaded lighter as I moved right. Does that make sense?

It's quite difficult to achieve the look on sections that are so small! I really loved how it turned out, and I hope the recipient loves it too.

A bit of a whoops that I've made this post about Blendabilities rather than saying goodbye to Baby Tees. Oh well!

Monday, 23 June 2014

Returning to my series of farewells, today I'm saying goodbye to the Modern Medley DSP. I thought it was a fun pack, and one that was easy to play with. On today's card I left it as it is, but I have also coloured over it in the past to create a different look.

This card was made as a sample for a recent Flower Cards class. I was using the new Fringing Scissors to show how you could use them to make a daisy-like flower.

I love the way the Modern Medley DSP provides a nice background for the flower to sit on without detracting from the flower. I will miss the papers, but there is an even nicer pack of similar papers in the new Catalogue, so I don't think I'll be sad for too long. Oh, I just realised that the Jumbo Rhinestones that I used in the centre of the flower are retiring too.

This photo was to show how much depth there was in the flower. After we adhered the strips around the circle we curled up the edges to give it more dimension. Definitely NOT a card for mailing!

Another cute stamp set that is retiring - Express Yourself. I really loved it for the variety of smaller sized sentiments.

Saturday, 21 June 2014

Are you having a fabulous weekend? I hope so. I'm getting a bit of stamping time in, which is lots of fun. I'm hoping to finish my Paris album soon - I got the last of my photos printed this week ready to scrap. In the meantime, here's a few more layouts.

We'd done a lot of walking this day and visited a lot of different places, so by the time we got to Notre Dame we were pretty tired! We decided to sit a people watch a while so that we could rest. The front courtyard of Notre Dame is a perfect place for people watching! We were also able to revisit our favourite crepe vendor, so we sat and munched on ham and cheese crepes while we watched the world go by and see how Notre Dame came to life with lights as dusk settled over the city. We may have also snuck in some lemon and sugar crepes too.

We had been waiting for dark so that we could do the 'love locked' thing on the Pont des Arts. What you do is buy a padlock, engrave it with your names, lock it to the bridge and throw the keys into the Seine. The reason you do it is so that you are forever love locked. How could we go to the world's most romantic city and not do it?

It was a lovely night on the bridge. It's a pedestrian bridge, so there were many small groups of people picnicking on the bridge and just hanging out. We felt a little self conscious doing it, but no one paid us any attention. I'm sure they are used to tourists doing it all the time!

Sadly, I saw on the news last week that they have had to cut all of the locks off the bridge as the weight of them had caused a section of the handrail to collapse, making the bridge unsafe. Just another reason to try to get back to Paris to do it again!

The Pont des Arts is near to the Louvre (and the Metro station we needed to get to). We had to cross the courtyard to get to the Metro and as we did the Eiffel Tower caught our eye - we saw the sparkling lights for the first time. We decided to wait and watch it again, as is was so very pretty. There is also plenty of people watching to do at the Louvre, so we found a quiet corner and settled in. There are a heap of illegal souvenir sellers in the courtyard. During the day they sell cheap Eiffel Towers, but at night they sell these little light up things that shoot off into the air. They were lots of fun to watch as we waited.

Friday, 20 June 2014

Here we are again at the end of another busy week. I don't know about you, but I'm hanging out for some time in my crafting space to get inky! If you are too, why don't you give our latest challenge at Just Add Ink a go?

This week Trish has put together this Inspiration Board as a focus for our challenge. What do you see in it? I went with both the colours and the shapes for my card.

I was asked to make a birthday card for a man turning 25. I wanted to make something that was a bit edgy and masculine, and I think I've achieved the look.

The base panel was created using my markers. I just hand drew the lines across the piece of cardstock using my Summer Starfruit, Smokey Slate and Midnight Muse Stampin' Write Markers. The lines are a bit wobbly and some are thicker than others, but that was exactly the look I was going for.

I also drew a few stripes on the inside and overlaid them with some left over triangles from the front of the card.

What are you going to pull from the Just Add Ink Inspiration Board to inspire your cardmaking? I can't wait to see!

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

I think the I Am Me DSP has well and truly been my favourite DSP in this catalogue. I really love the combination of colours and patterns in the paper. I used it to make this mini album, which I made for a Secret Santa gift last Christmas. I think the recipient was fairly easily able to work out that I'd made it, so I'm safe to post it on my blog.

I made a chipboard cover for the album, which I covered using some of the I Am Me DSP. I left the front blank so that a photo could be adhered there if desired.

I made a double page for each member of the family, but half of the pages had flaps to lift, so there ended up being 4 pages for each family member.

I also left some space at the front for some family photos.

I die cut each family member's name for their page and added some matts for photos. All they need to do is trim the photos to size and adhere them in place. Easy!

Under each flap I designed an "All About Me" page in My Digital Studio for each family member. You can see the types of questions I had on the page. I changed them for the adults, things like their workplace instead of school.

I hope the family had fun putting the rest of the album together. I thought it would be a great memento of this particular point in time that they could look back on in years to come.

Monday, 16 June 2014

Another sad farewell for another fabulous stamp today. Off The Grid has been one of my absolute favourite stamps for adding a touch of interest to a background.

As well as farewelling Off The Grid I was playing with some new product that I got while at Convention. We all got the Kinda Eclectic stamp set and I was lucky enough to win the new Sweetheart punch at a Prize Patrol.

I'm really loving the look of collage stamping, where you stamp a heap of different images over the top of each other. On this card I've used Off The Grid, Gorgeous Grunge and Kinda Eclectic. I was inspired by the card on page 164 of the new Annual Catalogue.

For all the grunginess on the outside, I went really for a really clean look on the inside. I think it helps make the sentiment stand out more, which is really important when you are thanking someone for their kindness.

Sunday, 15 June 2014

Our next stop on this day was the house of the author Victor Hugo. I am a huge Les Miserables fan, so of course I had to visit one of the places where he lived.

The photo on the top left of the page above shows his writing desk. I was fascinated to learn that he wrote while standing up. We also walked a lap of the square his house faces onto - Places des Vosges. It used to be a Royal Residence and gardens, but the inside is now this gorgeous park that is tucked away from the main road and quite lovely and peaceful.

After we left there we continued down Rue de Rivoli towards the site of the Bastille. I'm also a fan of the works of Alexandre Dumas, who references the Bastille in his Muskateer books. The Bastile itself is long gone - it was torn down and the bricks reused to build Pont de la Concorde. At the site is now the Colonne De Juillet, built to mark the July Revolution.

Apparently the bodies of the Revolutionaries are buried under the monument. The base of the monument is quiet graffitied, mostly with social protest slogans. The Column is still a site of protest - apparently protest marches follow the Rue es Rivoli and end at the Column.

Our next stop was the famed Berthillon. It's on Ile St-Louis, which is the island beside the one that Notre-Dame sits on. According to the Lonely Planet Guide Berthillon makes the best icecream in all of Europe. As we were in the area we decided to give it a go. Rob was amazed that we had to line up for nearly half an hour to get our icecream, but I insisted. I thought it was worth the wait, but Rob didn't enjoy his choices as much. We both had 2 scoops. I had Lemon and Raspberry gelato. The server was very clever, putting the raspberry on the bottom and lemon on top. The lemon was very tart and a big contrast to the sweet raspberry. Rob ordered Coffee and Ginger and I think he found the ginger a bit too overwhelming.

Friday, 13 June 2014

This month we say goodbye to retiring products from the current Annual Catalogue, so at Just Add Ink we though we'd challenge you to use some of your retiring colours. Your creation should use three of the retiring In Colours. Kim is the brains behind this fabulous challenge!

I decided to go with Raspberry Ripple, Primrose Petals and Midnight Muse on my card.

I was really pleased with how the background turned out on this card. After I made it though I was a bit stumped as to what to put over the top of it. Hubby suggested I go with a curved shape to offset all of the angles of the hexagons. I think he was right!

The larger butterfly is from the retiring Beautiful Butterflies Bigz Die, which I will miss a lot.

I think the two pinks look very pretty layered together on the butterflies - what do you think?

I hope you can play along with us this week. Which are your favourite colours from the retiring In Colours? See you over at Just Add Ink.

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Last month I ran a Card In A Box class and today's card is one of the samples I made to inspire the ladies who attended. It uses the retiring Simply Stars stamp set and I Am Me DSP. Both are favourites of mine that I have enjoyed crafting with over the past year.

It's such a cool concept for a card. I love the fact that it folds flat for posting but pops up into this fabulous 3D card to delight the recipient. Did you notice the sneak peek stamp on the front? I really like the Dymo label look of this stamp.

You can see that I used thin strips of Window Sheet to support the stars. They wave around a little, which adds to the cool effect of the card.

Plenty of room on the back for writing your sentiment.

The most difficult part of making this card is to make sure that your stars (or what ever else you use) don't hang out the sides when the card is folded flat, which isn't really difficult at all!

I will be making another one of these sometime this week - my daughter's BFF is having her birthday party this weekend and Ada has put in an order for a butterfly card after seeing this one on my craft desk!

Monday, 9 June 2014

I'm a bit late with my post today - all out of whack with the long weekend!

Today's card farewells two of my favourite stamp sets from the current catalogue. I especially loved Sweet Essentials, as it was a versatile sentiment set that covered a wide range of occasions.

I love a simple colour scheme for a wedding card - it really adds a touch of class.

This cute little ruffled ribbon is also retiring, even though the Pistachio Pudding colour is still around for another year. I love the look of it just peeking out from the bottom of the Silver Glimmer paper.

I loved that you could get a smaller image from the Beautifully Baroque stamp, just by selectively colouring the inner segment with a marker. So easy, but so effective.

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About Me

I'm a stay at home mum with 3 children. I started scrapbooking in 2009 and cardmaking not long after. In February 2010 I signed up as an Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. Please contact me to place your order: tinag.blog@gmail.com

Disclaimer and Copyright

All content is the sole responsibility of Tina Gillespie, Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator and the use of and content of the classes, services and products offered on this website is not endorsed by Stampin' Up!. Some stamped images on this site are copyright Stampin' Up! 1990 - 2019. Designs on this site are copyright Tina Gillespie unless otherwise attributed. All designs and tutorials are for your personal inspiration only.